How to interpret your sleep study report:
The sleep studies include “Diagnositic Studies”, “Split Night studies”, “Full Night CPAP/BiPAP/ASV titration studies”, and daytime MWT/MSLT studies. Each Peninsula Sleep Center’s report has two summary pages and 3 to 7 pages of tables and graphs.It basically reports the sleep architecture (brain EEG), oxygen saturation, cardiac events, respiration during sleep, snoring, legs movements during sleep.
The following information may explain more about your sleep study report:
Normal sleep stages:
* Stage N1: 2-5% (up to 8%) of total sleep time.* Stage N2: 45-55% of total sleep time.
* Stage 3: 3-8%
* Stage 4: 10-15%
* Stage REM: 20-25%*Stage N3 is Stage 3+ Stage 4 = 13-23%
- Source: Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine by Kryger, Roth, Dement/ 2005
Normal Oxygenation:
* Oxygen saturation: (normal: greater than 90-92%)* Oxygen saturation may remain normal despite respiratory events and EEG arousals.
* Intermittent hypoxemia means fluctuations of oxygen saturation in blood due to cessation of air flow. This may be measured by the time in low saturation or by the number of occasions that oxygen saturation drops. The latter is called desaturation index (DI), which is the number of times per hour of sleep when the O2 saturation decreases by 4% or more.
Respiration:
* Apnea: Complete cessation of breathing for 10 seconds or more.* Apnea could be due to closure of the throat (Obstructive), or lack of respiratory effort by brain (Central).
* Hypopnea: Breathing may become significantly shallow to a degree that blood oxygen saturation decreases. When this continues for more than 10 seconds, it is called hypopnea.
* RERA: Shallow respiration that causes only arousals from sleep is called “Respiratory Effort-Related Arousals” (RERA). This does not affect the oxygen saturation.
* The number of the above per hour of sleep is called an “index”, i.e. Apnea Index, Hypopnea Index, and RERA Index. Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) is the number of apneas and hypopneas per hour of sleep time. “Respiratory Disturbance Index” (RDI) is the sum of all the 3 event forms.
* An RDI of 5 or greater is needed for diagnosis of Sleep Apnea.(Source: International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-2) and 2007 AASM Manual for Scoring.)
Legs movements:
* Periodic legs movements: Frequent twitches of leg muscles during sleep. This may be asymptomatic or may cause sleep fragmentation, frequent breain arousals, and my cause daytime tiredness/sleepiness.